The history of this blog is ...
It started as a diary of starting my own public relations agency - POP! Public Relations.
I changed it to Jots and commentary, opinions and views on PR, publicity and issues therein.
And now, it's about public relations and social media and the hope for change, moving forward with and within the industries.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Yahoo Search Subscriptions: the unintentional PR tool

I also received an email from Factiva giving me notice that they are going to be part of the service. Factiva, along with the WSJ, Forrester and LexisNexis among others is a great tool for public relations folks.

Think about this: in PR, we do a lot of research. We do research for new business proposals. We do research for press releases. We do research for media pitches, or we should at least be doing research on the product and its competitors to be able to speak intelligibly to reporters. A cornerstone of PR is research.

Now think about this: Yahoo Search Subscriptions has many of the tools that PR people use for research in one place. We use Forrester for the analyst reports. We use Factiva and LexisNexis for background dating to the stone age (okay, it just seems that is how big the databases are). We use the WSJ to get the take from the business world. Yes, the blogosphere has made research even easier than it used to be, but sometimes we want to go back and find deep analysis or research, and these are the best tools. And, now they are in one easy search engine.

There are a couple of drawbacks. One is the reality that not all content is free. While the large agencies might have subscriptions to all these tools, the smaller boutiques like POP! PR has subscriptions to a few. Another drawback is noted by John Battelle, that the publishers should use Yahoo as "central clearinghouse for transactions and subscription fulfillment/services" so people can subscribe and pay in one location. I like Battelle's suggestion that there should be a pay-for-click model as well.

It's still a great tool, and one that should be highly used by PR professionals.

About Me

Using Usenet and online enthusiast sites - now called blogs or social networks - for campaigns when he started, Pepper incorporates online tactics to traditional strategies. Pepper has worked with a who's who of Fortune 500 companies, ranging from consumer tech to consumer packaged goods to high tech, providing integrated communications counsel to such companies as Kodak, Clorox, Cisco, GM, Mobile 1, HP, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Campbell's Soup, amongst others.

Pepper began his blog more than 8 years ago, and continues to be an early adopter of social media, understanding how it works in the real-world.

In his spare time, Pepper enjoys yoga, Pilates and boxing, can be found eating PB&J sandwiches or hamburgers and is the lone figure walking in LA.